I woke up feeling hazy, Ava hovering patiently in front of me. “I guess I should have told you not to run out of mana or you would pass out from exhaustion. I figured you would be able to tell it takes a toll on your body as you use it. Are you ok?”

I checked the cell phone; it had been about 3 hours since I blacked out. “Yes Ava, I’m fine. Thanks for checking on me, but a little heads up would have been nice. I could tell it was draining me by how my body felt, but I thought I would just run out numerically like in a video game. I guess I should have known though, that’s a pretty common thing in situations like this.”

Looking around, it seems my solar panel was completed without any other issues. I’ll have to set it up and test it out after I get back from town. My main goal is to see what the situation is in town and try to recover any supplies I can. It would be much easier on me if I didn’t have to spend hours out of commission because I tried to make something and spent too much mana.

When I stood up, I noticed a notification blinking in the corner of my vision so I clicked on it with my mind.

Host has run out of mana. For using all of your mana for the first time +15 Mana Points.

Well, that was a pleasant surprise to receive out of that experience. 15 more Mana Points should allow me to make a few more things without passing out like that again. I will have to get a good feel of when I’m close to running out of mana and stop the process.

I should get out of here and go scout the town. I spoke quickly “Ava, can I enter the Library World no matter where I am?”

“Yes, you can enter whenever you want. You will just need to think Open Library, and a doorway will appear for you to enter the world. The opposite works while in the Library World, just think Leave Library.”

I went ahead tested this out, thinking Leave Library and a light brown wooden door with no glass appeared in front of me. I reached out and touched the handle, opening it as the familiar view of my dark kitchen appeared on the other side. I stepped through and the door closed behind me automatically, vanishing like it was never there.

I picked my old cell phone back up out of the window nook. “Wow, it really had only passed a couple of minutes in the outside world while hours went by in the library.”

Right about that time I heard a voice in my head and fell backwards dropping the phone and splaying myself in the floor again. “Yes Robert, I told you time passed much slower in the outside world when you were in the library. This is important for you to be able to grow and manage your world while interacting with the outside worlds.”

“Ava! Don’t do that, you were trying to scare me on purpose weren’t you! I thought we could only communicate when I’m in the Library World.”

I heard a small snicker in her voice as if the little orb was smiling. “I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity. You never asked so I didn’t tell you. It made things quite enjoyable for me though, you gotta take pleasure in the small things y’know.”

I just chuckled and got back to my feet, it seemed I was spending a lot of time on the floor today. “I guess I can’t fault you for that one, I probably should have asked more questions before leaving to check on the outside world. Not like I’m short on time in there.”

“It’s important for us to maintain communication when you’re not in the Library World. When you develop your world into something closer to resembling an actual world, then you will need to have information on what is going on when you’re not present. Time will still pass 100x faster in the Library World even if you aren’t here, so please remember that. The cell phone you created while within the Library World is set to run on library time to give you a better idea of time in the library when you aren’t here.”

All of that seemed pretty helpful and linear. “Thank you, Ava. I’m gonna head towards the city now.”

I reached down to pet Greta who was now laying on the nook enjoying the soft cushions. Looking around the room I decided to grab my backpack and empty it, hoping the extra storage would allow me to scavenge more supplies. I went outside and walked around the back of the house and opened my shed. I pulled my decaying blue bicycle out and checked to make sure the thing still worked. It had been a long time since using it, but this would be a lot quicker than walking since the car wouldn’t work now.

Luckily the tires weren’t flat and still held air. I hopped on and started pedaling towards town.